


I to thee a mirror

by zinjadu



Series: Wed to Blight [17]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Female Friendship, Gen, Male-Female Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-17
Updated: 2019-02-17
Packaged: 2019-10-30 14:06:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17829983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zinjadu/pseuds/zinjadu
Summary: What did they see when they looked at her?  What they wanted to see, what they needed to see.  Just some moments on the road when Sten, Leliana, and Zevran all wonder what this tiny slip of a girl is to them.





	I to thee a mirror

Sten waited for the Warden—the quiet Warden—to make a decision.  It was a simple task, he thought. The noise of insects was apt for this moment as she delayed taking her action.  The sun teetered on the horizon’s edge, and he kept his face impassive as she pondered.

 

“This seems like a good spot for it,” she said eventually and unrolled the tanned hide over a patch of grass.  Sten allowed himself a quiet rumble, making her turn around to search his face for disapproval. He would not deny that she had a certain talent for being able to use stealth and terrain to her advantage, nor that she was adept with simple traps and her bow.  However, her discomfort with unfamiliar tasks was still plain to him. It was plain in the way she discreetly compared herself to what others did, and how she spent extra time _considering_ her options in the pretense of being thorough.  

 

He folded his arms over his chest but said nothing.

 

A small spark of satisfaction lit in his chest as she held his gaze.  That was good. Very good. She was not cowed easily, and she always searched for what was underneath what she saw.  The chinks in an opponent’s armor to strike, the gap in the trees to wend through. The difference between disapproval and a test.

 

“I should get back to it, then,” she declared.  Unfurling the oiled canvas, she began to set up her tent.  She patterned herself off the others, specifically the loud Warden who had clearly already learned this skill and aided the older mage before seeing to his own comfort.  Caitwyn asked for no help, but she watched, and she learned. She learned without needing to be told, without requiring a thousand questions answered.

 

She was unexpected, in and of herself, in this land that smelled of wet dog and full of people who questioned and complained.  Among the others, she was a quiet, still pool of water, reflecting back what others expected to see. But underneath that surface was a depth that contained more than most might credit.  Than he himself had credited upon first seeing her from the cage in Lothering.

 

What had he taught her in the time since she had set him free?  To move with the land, not over it. To understand the ways of beasts.  To survive and fight and to calm her mind, though she would never be as adept at that skill as one trained so from youth.  He had overseen the training of many young warriors in his time as Sten, and yet this one was unlike the rest and not simply because she was not of the Beresaad.  

 

The assassin built up the fire, the minstrel tuned her lute, and the witch prepared supper.  Without a glance over her shoulder at Sten, the Warden had raised the canvas on a taut line and staked down the guideropes of the tent.  Her dog watched her, his head tilting back and forth, and a whine built in his throat.

 

“We can sleep under cover now, won’t that be nice?” she asked him.  The dog sneezed. Then she did glance up at Sten, her eyes gleaming in the light of the fire.  “You want to tell him he’s being overly dramatic, or should I?”

 

Sten did not smile, he would not do such a thing.  He did, however, regard the dog and with some amusement in his voice, told it, “A warrior does not turn down shelter.”

 

The animal’s forlorn flop into the grass and sigh made his master smile, and she fondly scratched his ears.

 

“Not bad for a first attempt,” she said of her own handiwork.  Sten shrugged.

 

“You should not take so long to decide such things,” he admonished her.  Rather than balk, she merely ducked her head to acknowledge the point. Yes, she reflected what others wished to see in her, and Sten finally understood what it was _he_ saw.  

 

What was she to him, he had wondered.

 

Untaught and looked down on by others in her own lands, she was someone who carried her honor with her, inside of her.  At times he could watch the struggle in her eyes, the ebb and flow of the choices that were before her. And every time she turned inward, looking for something inside of herself and _finding it_.  Her honor, as deep and still as the ocean under the waves.

 

Sten’s honor had abandoned him when he had committed murder.  When he had been pushed to the limits, he had found himself wanting.  His honor shattered upon the ground with the ruined bodies of the innocent farmers he had slaughtered in his madness.  Her honor was intact. She had not lost her _self_.  He could not say the same.  Perhaps, if he taught her all he could, through her he would regain what he had so recently lost.  

 

He could be whole again.

 

* * *

 

Leliana sat next to Caitwyn as the grey light of the morning was broken by the first pink and orange fingers of the dawn.  Her dog huddled next to her side, eager to keep sleeping. Caitwyn watched with sharp eyes as Leliana used the jig to line up the fletching of her arrow and began to wend the threaded sinew about the shaft.  It was easy, once someone showed you how.

 

Leliana had been shown how to do a great many things.

 

Marjolaine had taught her how to garner trust and gain advantage, to use all her skill and charm to do what her mistress needed to have accomplished.  Once, Leliana had taken pride in such skill, in such deftness and cleverness. And yet, what had she really learned? To trust no one, to use others for her own ends.  No, not her own ends. For Marjolaine’s ends. For the Game itself.

 

She had thought she could hide from what she had become, but the Maker had other plans in store for her.  And now, now she taught a young woman how to fletch her own arrows. Leliana had learned the same thing years ago and earned a kiss for providing a full quiver.  A kiss for all the death those arrows could deliver.

 

“There, that is one.  Would you like to try?”  Leliana held out another shaft and three feathers.  Caitwyn took them and set up the jig exactly as Leliana had.  A quick study, this young woman. An elf from Denerim, she had no formal education, none of the training or teachers Leliana had known, however peremptory or impatient they had been.

 

The girl was not what Leliana had expected when she had been granted the vision of the rose.  A rose implied something fragile, delicate. Precious. Was the rose Caitwyn or the hope the Warden represented?  Leliana was not sure, and she wavered back and forth trying to decide. With every day and in small actions, the young woman gave away small glimpses of her story for anyone with the eyes to see, but still Leliana did not have a definite answer.

 

In a matter of moments, Caitwyn proved herself adapt at another task.  Leliana was hardly surprised as the elf proudly held up the arrow she had constructed.  The young woman was good with her hands, quick, clever fingers, and a deft touch for delicate work such as picking locks and disarming or setting traps.  She had to have learned that somewhere, from someone. The girl couldn’t be the rose herself. She was too focused, too sharp.

 

But roses had thorns.  

 

“Think I got the hang of it.”  Caitwyn’s lilting voice was quiet in the early morning, only the two of them awake.  Leliana had grown to love the hush and stillness of the dawn after her years as a shadow in the night, and she hoped the others would be slow to wake this morn.  All too soon it would be a clatter of armor and a plaintive asking for breakfast, tarnishing the relative peace of the moment.

 

“Let me see.”  Leliana picked up the arrow and tested the hold of the sinew.  It would suffice if they were going to fight or hunt that day, but their supply of arrows sorely needed upkeep, and they would have to ensure what they made would last.  “This is well done, but we need to add a final touch. In my pack, you will find a small, sealed jar of glue near the bottom. Get it, would you and I can show you how to do the final step.”

 

Caitwyn’s brows flickered downward for an instant, but returned to their usual arch of polite interest so quickly Leliana was not sure if she even saw the woman frown.  But a frown it had been. Nevertheless, Caitwyn leaned over her dog to reach Leliana’s pack and began to dig through it. She shifted as little as possible, a polite gesture, and before long came up with the jar of glue.

 

“I hope you’ve got a brush, or I’m going to be going around with my fingers stuck together.” Caitwyn’s tone was light, teasing, and she mockingly pretended that her fingers were glued together already.  A puff of laughter escaped Leliana, and Caitwyn’s answering grin flashed across her face. Yet it did not reach her eyes. Few things reached Caitwyn’s eyes. Her face told one story, but her eyes told another.

 

Even a lack of reaction was information in its own way.

 

“Do not worry!  You will see,” she assured her fellow archer.  Leliana set to work gluing the fletching down as fast as Caitwyn could tie it all together.  Around them the others rose, and thankfully Zevran took it upon himself to make breakfast this morning.  A waft of heavily spiced eggs and potatoes set Leliana’s stomach to grumbling. Caitwyn’s as well. The volume of it made even Matheor raise his head and turn worried canine eyes to his master.

 

“Should eat _you_ , you great beast.”  The rough and affectionate ear scratching Caitwyn gave the large Mabari took any and all sting out of the words.  The dog grumbled in delight, his mouth spreading in a canine grin before he nudged his great head into his master’s side.  “Oh alright, alright, we can get some rabbit. But you’re helping.”

 

Maethor wuffed his agreement and stood, stretching himself forward and dragging his hind legs behind him for a short distance.  Then he turned about several times and, to Leliana’s mind, stuck a pose of hunting readiness. Caitwyn followed suit, though with less fanfare than her dog.  Small and lithe, the young woman stretched her arms up over her head and worked her shoulders as if she were always a touch sore. Certainly sleeping on the ground more often than not did not lend itself to restful slumber.  Leliana had her own struggles with that after two years in the Chantry. Maethor, however, betrayed his impatience and whined, his entire backside wiggling with eagerness to be off and moving. Caitwyn grinned and dashed ahead of him a short distance, Maethor following at speed and skidding to a halt as Caitwyn jumped back and was suddenly sprinting in the opposite direction.

 

A tinkling laugh fell from Leliana’s lips to see dog and young woman together, playing a simple game of chase.

 

“Have you given thought to what happens if he catches you?” Leliana asked.  Caitwyn vaulted over the dog’s back as he caught up to her a second time, and Leliana tried to think of another time she had witnessed the young Warden this free, this unaffected.  She had not.

 

“Oh, I suspect I’ll be licked to death.”  The girl trotted to a halt and retrieved her bow and quiver of arrows.  “Should get him a rabbit to prevent that. Come on, boy.” With no more than that, the Warden loped into the brush, and Leliana was forced to scramble to keep up.  Small, even for an elf, but quick.

 

Leliana followed, again struck by how softly Caitwyn placed her feet, how barely any sound or too-quick movement gave her away as she stalked for her dog’s breakfast.  A girl one moment, a hunter and Warden the next. Perhaps she _was_ the rose, thorns and all.  The rose was her and she was the hope on which the world hung.  She had her thorns, her methods of keeping that which was most precious safe, but not even the best thorns in the world would keep away something determined to destroy the delicate thing they protected.

 

Marjolaine had taught Leliana much.  How to destroy and pick apart, like a child tearing at the petals of a flower.  Yet those lessons might be turned to a different use, a better purpose. To protect, to cultivate.  After all, was that not what one did with roses? Did one’s best to allow them to bloom? As one might let hope bloom.

 

Hope for the world, and hope for herself.  That she was more than what Marjolaine had made her to be.

 

* * *

 

“So,” Zevran drawled.  He considered what he knew of the girl in front of him carefully in the late afternoon light.  It was an oddly short list, and that alone made her a curious creature. She was acrobatic, he had seen that in their various fights at Redcliffe, along the road, as he had tried to assassinate her.  Little moments such as that. Adept with a bow, yes, but he thought it a shame she did not learn what she could of dagger work. It was unfortunate that she was disinclined for such close fighting.

 

“So,” she echoed, her accent making her words short and clipped.  Or she simply did not care for him due to his thus far ignored advances.  Though he was not certain on that point. There was a softness to her, underneath a face that froze like ice at times.  “Give it a thought? Helping me train?”

 

She trained with the qunari, but that was hand to hand, and all designed to buy her enough time to regain her distance.  She trained with her fellow Warden as well, practicing using shield and bow to their advantage, though some of their other exercises were terribly obscure.  Once he observed with some curiosity as they marked off paces and shouted back and forth at each other, as though establishing some sort of calling distance.  Though they went beyond that and had taken to shooting signal arrows, eventually ending the spectacle when they were some two hundred paces distant from each other.

 

Neither of them had volunteered what that had been for.

 

“You wish to be an assassin?” he asked teasingly, putting as much playfulness as he could into his voice.  “While I think you would be well suited, Warden, the Crows would be even more displeased with me if I gave away their secrets.  I would rather not give them more cause to see me dead.”

 

“Not that,” she answered with a dismissive turn of her head.  A curl fell free of her braid, and she tucked it behind her ear.  “I mean with tracking. Sten has a heavy tread, said I should find someone with a lighter step to learn to track.”  Zevran’s eyebrows rose to meet his hairline, his face openly displaying his incredulity.

 

“Let me see if I understand your intent.  You wish to follow me into deceptive and unfamiliar terrain, and what?  Do you wish that I also lay traps for you to foil? Perhaps I shall coat my daggers with poison as well,” he offered blithely.  He had no inclination to harm this girl, but he felt the attention from her companions like leaden weights at his back every time he spoke to the small Warden.  It would have been amusing if it was not so misplaced. Though, he supposed he had done little to assuage certain fears. Save, perhaps, for the girl in question herself.

 

How he had done that, however, he was not certain.

 

Another puzzle.

 

“How long are you going to keep making jokes out of the fact that you tried to kill me?” she retorted with a wry lilt to her voice.  She huffed and waved her hand to dismiss whatever he was about to say next. “Cause it’s getting a bit stale.”

 

“I was not aware you were such a critic of the comedic arts, Warden,” he quipped, and his lips curved in a grin.  How could they not? She played the her parts well, this girl. Warden and leader. Student and friend. Huntress and warrior.  And yet, underneath all that, _who was she_?  Did she even know?

 

A pity if she did not.

 

“Little known fact,” she said flatly, and as quick as that she danced away from view.  Metaphorically speaking. She stood as still as a creature of the wild when spotted by an interloper.  “And you don’t have to help me, Zevran. Not if you don’t want to.”

 

 _Brasca_ , what a strange girl.  One moment as light as a raindrop, the next as weighty as the ocean.  What did he want? She asked this, though not directly. What did he seek?  His own life, certainly, even after he had tried his best to throw it away. In all his life, had anyone ever given him such things?  Given it and meant it?

 

Ah, but he was asking questions to which he already knew the answer.

 

“I will help you, Caitwyn, if I may call you that.  I warn you, however, I will not hold back. Our opponents will not,” he told her with a touch of mockery in his attempt at a stern tone.  He was not like the Sten, after all.

 

“Wouldn’t have asked for you help if I thought you would,” she said easily, a hint of eagerness in her eyes.  He did learn something new, then. She enjoyed being proficient in her skills, and if that was the case perhaps she would be able to take to Crow training.

 

Though he would not use the methods that had been turned on him as a boy.  No. That life was done, and he would not be a part of any longer. Something else new was before him, a life that he might yet shape, might yet choose.

 

A fascinating prospect.

 

Her cheeky reply prompted his lips to curl into a smirk, and he said, “Then, Warden, let us begin.”


End file.
